Wilson Audio Sasha Series 2

In Store Only

Sasha, like the WATT/Puppy before it, remains Wilson’s best selling speaker. Its combination of high performance in a relatively compact form factor has always been its greatest strength. The Sasha Series-2 takes the performance side of that equation to an entirely new plane.

Introduction

Features

The WATT/Puppy is perhaps the most salient and iconic example of Dave Wilson’s lifelong quest for the absolute sound. The WATT, the upper module of the combination, began in the mid-eighties as a utilitarian recording tool, a portable, ultra-high resolution location monitor for the recordings he was then making. The WATT was later paired with a dedicated woofer module—the “Puppy.” The WATT/Puppy combo became Wilson Audio’s largest selling product. The reason was simple: it was a truly compact, full-range loudspeaker that could fit easily in most real-world listening rooms while still offering the bass speed and extension, the dynamics, and musicality associated with much larger systems.

With the advent of Sasha W/P, Dave and his team re-imagined the platform as a unified system. The previously discrete WATT, which, emblematic of its location-monitor heritage, could function as a stand-alone loudspeaker, was discontinued. The Sasha was redesigned from the ground up as an integrated system, allowing Wilson to optimize every detail to achieve the next quantum leap in compact loudspeaker performance.

Research and development is a never-ending process at Wilson Audio. Inevitably, technology that didn’t exist at the debut of Sasha W/P Series 1 influenced the design and execution of Sasha Series-2. Two prime examples: Laser Vibrometry Analysis, long used in automotive and aerospace applications, allows us to measure mechanical vibrations in our cabinets down to the level of nanometers. This invaluable data allows Wilson to optimize the composite structure of the cabinet, as well as the position and thickness of the internal braces. The Wilson Convergent Synergy tweeter was developed for the flagship Alexandria XLF. We next adapted it for the three-module Alexia. For the Sasha Series-2, a new version was designed specifically for its two-module platform, and features a bespoke rear-wave chamber.

Precise Time Alignment

Research has shown that humans can hear timing errors on the order of milliseconds. Accurate alignment of the leading edge of transients emanating from the individual drivers in a multi-way loudspeaker results in natural harmonic expression, transient speed, and a sense of listening ease. The obsessive attention to proper correction of the time domain errors caused by multi-driver systems is in large part why Wilson loudspeakers sound like live music. The Sasha Series-2 features an exponential increase in the number of time-domain adjustment settings available, making correct alignment possible for a much greater range of listening distances and ear heights.

Proprietary Cabinet Materials

The material to which a driver is mounted provides the “launch pad” for cone excursions. Years of empirical listening trials and materials testing, most recently with Wilson’s Laser Vibrometer, have shown that different materials provide optimum baffles for different drivers. Wilson’s proprietary X Material is the ideal “launch pad” for woofers and tweeters. The research surrounding the original Sasha led to the development of S Material, which was ideally suited to Sasha’s midrange driver. Given that model’s continuous slope baffle, however, the practical choice of baffle material became an either/or proposition. Now, with Series-2’s angled front, the tweeter gets X Material and the midrange is mounted on its optimum launch pad, S Material.

Custom Version of the Convergent Synergy Tweeter:

The magic of Wilson’s midrange driver is in no small part due to its ability to cover almost the entire mid-band without interruption of the crossover, including in the male-vocal region. The Wilson mid is unsurpassed for its harmonic coherence and dynamic alacrity. But it also means that the driver is large and therefore limited in its upper frequency range. The previous Sasha featured an inverted titanium dome tweeter that proved a successful and coherent match to Wilson’s midrange driver. During its decade-long development, it evolved such that it uniquely excelled in the areas of low distortion, resolution of micro and macro dynamics, and harmonic expression. It was developed to play down to the one kilohertz region with low distortion and high power handling ability.

Four years ago, the Wilson design team led by Dave began a renewed quest for an improved tweeter that culminated in a proprietary Wilson design, which was dubbed the Convergent Synergy Tweeter. The new Wilson CST first found a home in the Alexandria XLF. Wilson’s tweeter rejects exotic materials in favor of a new silk dome design that better meets all of Wilson Audio’s musical design goals—and, perhaps most importantly, provides a seamless match to Wilson’s midrange driver.

The Convergent Synergy Tweeter now makes its debut in the Sasha. This version of the CST features a bespoke rear-wave chamber, designed specifically for the Sasha Series-2 platform.